It will be seen, therefore, that there are abundant reasons for predicting that a large portion of the business of Oregon will center in Portland, for many years to come, at any rate. The more cause that Portland men should welcome the development of the other portions of the State, with which in the future profitable business is certain to arise, as new industries are started, existing interests widen and strengthen themselves, and new centers of population and business find their places in the growing State. Time will show whether the sanguine hopes of the Portland people that their city will hold the virtual monopoly of the trade of the Northwest are well founded or not. There can, in my mind, be little doubt that she will have a very formidable rival in the city on Puget Sound which will spring up, as by magic, when the Northern Pacific Railroad there receives and discharges passengers and freight. It will be an evil day for Portland when the wharves at Tacoma find the grain-ships alongside, and the cars pouring in the grain of Eastern Oregon and Washington Territory. And some little effect on her tolls will be produced when Yaquina Bay is opened, and the cars of the Oregon Pacific are there delivering the freight of Middle and Southern Oregon. Portlanders rely on what they call the concentration of capital to pull them through. They have yet to learn the sensitiveness of the movements of their divinity--how prone she is to follow the current of trade to its points of receipt and delivery. And should that day ever dawn, when figures show her "supremacy" to have departed, not one single sigh will escape these valley counties, which Portland has levied tribute on, and done her best to keep in bondage till the end of time. [Sidenote: _UP THE COLUMBIA RIVER._] Passing eastward from Portland up the Columbia, in one of the large and comfortable boats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, a day's journey brings you to the Dalles. I have already mentioned how rapidly this town is growing, as the point of distribution for the greater portion of Northeastern Oregon, and the point of reception for vast quantities of grain, wool, hides, and other productions of that pastoral and agricultural country. Taking a Willamette River boat, notice in passing the Oswego Iron-Works, seven miles from Portland, and then the village of Milwaukee, with large and well-appointed nurseries, whence many of the orchards of the State have been supplied.